i
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for the Attainment of the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By:
Teddy Ansyah Abidin
09202241050
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY
iv
Nama :
NIM :
Prodi :
Fakultas :
Judul Skripsi :
Teddy Ansyah Abidin
09202241050
Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
Bahasa dan Seni
Using Story-Mapping Technique to Improve the Writing Ability of
Grade VIII Students at SMP N 2 Gamping, Sleman in the
Academic Year of 2013/2014
menyatakan bahwa karya ilmiah ini adalah hasil pekerjaan saya sendiri.
Sepanjang pengetahuan saya, karya ilmiah ini tidak berisi materi yang ditulis oleh
orang lain kecuali bagian-bagian tertentu yang saya ambil sebagai acuan dengan
mengikuti tata cara dan etika penulisan karya ilmiah yang lazim.
Apabila ternyata terbukti bahwa pernyataan ini tidak benar, sepenuhnya menjadi
tanggung jawab saya.
Yogyakarta, April 2014
Penulis
v
Loving parents and inspiring teachers
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“Verily, with every difficulty there is relief”.
(Qs. Al Insyiroh 94:6)
Narated By Abu Hurairah : “The Apostle of Allah (pbuh) said: If
anyone pursues a path in knowledge, Allah will thereby make easy
for him a path to the Paradise; and he who is made slow by his
actions will not be speeded by his genealogy”.
vii
with the best things in my life. His blessing has empowered me to finish this thesis.
Peace be upon Muhammad SAW, the last messenger of the only greatest teaching.
I would like to express my gratitude to my first supervisor, Dr. Margana,
M.Hum.,M.A. and my second supervisor Dwiyani Pratiwi, S.Pd., M.Hum. who have
guided me during the process of the thesis writing. I thank them for all their advice,
directions, understanding, and encouragements.
I also thank the Principal of SMP N 2 Gamping, Sugiyarto, S.pd. for giving
me permission to conduct the research in the school and the English teacher, Sri
Nurfuaddiyah, S.Pd. for her cooperation and help during the research. Great thanks
are also given to the students of grade eight for being cooperative to be my
correspondents.
I would like to express my appreciation to my family. First, I would like to
thank my beloved father and mother, Purwanto and Mujiasih who never stop praying
for me and inspire me to do the best. Second, I would like to thank Hasan Musthofa,
my beloved brother. Third, I would like to thank my collaborator, Asfar Arif, who
always accompanied and helped me during the research.
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Yogyakarta, 28 April 2014
ix
RATIFICATION ...
iii
HALAMAN PERNYATAAN ...
iv
DEDICATION ...
v
MOTTO ...
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...
ix
LIST OF TABLES ...
xii
LIST OF FIGURES ...
xiii
LIST OF APPENDICES ...
xiv
ABSTRACT ...
xv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Research ...
1
B. The Identification of the Problem ...
3
C. The Limitation of the Problem ...
4
D. The Formulation of the Problem ...
5
E. The Objectives of the Research...
6
F. The Significances of the Research ...
6
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
A.
Literature Review ...
8
1.
Theory of Writing ...
8
a.
What is Writing ...
8
b.
Micro Skills and macro skills of Writing ...
10
c.
Writing Process ...
12
x
h.
Teaching Writing in Junior High School ...
21
2.
The Story-mapping Technique... ....
23
a.
Definition... ...
23
b.
Advantages of Story-mapping Techniques...
24
B. Relevant Studies...
25
C. Conceptual Framework ...
26
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A.
Type of Research...
28
B.
Setting of the Research...
29
C.
Subjects of the Research ...
30
D.
Instruments of the Research ...
30
E.
Procedure of the Research ...
32
F.
Data and Technique of Collecting Data ...
34
G.
The Research Data Analysis ...
36
H.
Validity and Reliability of the Data ...
38
CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
A.
Reconnaissance ...
41
1.
Identification of the Problems ...
41
2.
The Selection of the Problem ...
45
3.
Determining the Action to Overcome the Problems ...
46
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a. Planning ...
63
b. Action and Observation ...
65
c. Reflection ...
68
C.
The Result of the Research ...
73
D.
Discussion ...
79
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions ...
81
B. Implications ...
82
C. Suggestions ...
83
REFERENCES
...
85
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Table 1 : The Standard of Competence and Basic Competency of Writing for
Grade VIII in the First Semester... 22
Table 2 : The Field Problems in VIII B Class SMPN 2 Gamping ... 45
Table 3 :
The Field Problems to solve ... 46
Table 4
: The Students’
Mean Score in the Content Aspect ... 75
Table 5
: The Students’ Mean
Score in the Organization Aspect ... 75
Table 6
: The Students’ Mea
n Score in the Vocabulary Aspect ... 75
Table 7
: The Students’ Mean
Score in the Language Use Aspect ... 76
Table 8
: The Students’ Me
an Score in the Mechanics Aspect... 76
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Figure 1:
An example of a story map ...
24
Figure 2:
Simple Action Research Cycle Model by Kemmis and
McTaggart ...
33
Figure 3: O
ne of the students’ work in Cycle 1
...
62
Figure 4: O
ne of the students’ work in Cycle II
...
72
Figure 5
: The Students’ Mean Scores in Five Aspects of Writing
... 77
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Appendix 1. Interview Transcripts ...
86
Appendix 2. Field Notes ...
97
Appendix 3. Lesson Plan ...
106
a. Lesson Plan 1 ...
106
b. Lesson Plan 2 ...
114
c. Lesson Plan 3 ...
122
d. Lesson Plan 4 ...
129
e. Lesson Plan 5 ...
137
Appendix 4. The Course Grid ...
144
Appendix 5.
Students’ Scores
...
151
Appendix 6.
Students’ Attendance List
...
155
Appendix 7. Interview Guideline ...
156
Appendix 8. Writing Rubric ...
161
Appendix 9.
Students’ Writings
...
162
Appendix 10. Documentation ...
171
xv
By:
Teddy Ansyah Abidin
09202241050
Abstract
This research investigated how the use of The Story-mapping Technique
could improve the writing ability of grade VIII students at SMP N 2 Gamping in the
academic year of
2013/ 2014. It concerned on solving the students’ problems in
writing on the five aspects namely content, organization, vocabulary, language use,
and mechanics.
This study was categorized into Action Research (AR). The subjects of the
study were the VIII B students of SMP N 2 Gamping in the academic year of 2013/
2014. The first cycle was divided into three meetings and the second cycle was
divided into two meetings. The research was done with the participation of 30
students of VIII B class, the English teacher and another collaborator. The qualitative
data were in the form of field notes and interview transcripts while the quantitative
data were in the form of the students’ scores. The validity of the research was
obtained by adopting five criteria of validity namely democratic validity, process
validity, outcome validity, catalytic validity and dialogic validity.
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A. Background of the Research
English is very important in the daily life. As an International language,
it plays important role in communication which mostly many people are
involved in. English has many interrelationships with various aspects of life
owned by human being. Therefore, English as a compulsory object is taught at
junior and senior high schools in Indonesia.
In English, there are four skills that should be mastered. They are
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening and reading are receptive
skills because learners do not need to produce language to do these, they
receive and understand it, on the other hand, speaking and writing are
productive skills because learners need to do these to produce language. They
are also known as active skills.
The writing skill becomes very important in the education field.
Therefore, students need to be exercised and trained in order to have a good
writing skill. Writing is a complicated process of problem solving which
involves controlling the text, reaching the purpose of writing the thoughts in
the text, planning-arranging the thoughts and collecting data for the target
(Chen and Zhou, 2010). Writing in second language is assumed to be more
difficult than that in the first language. To some extents, the writing disabilities
are caused by problems in vocabulary and grammar. However, an
grammar but also has to be well sequenced, cohesive, coherent, and appropriate
with its purpose.
Nowadays, English language is studied in all levels of school. In junior
high school, where the students have not understood yet about English,
commonly their English proficiency is still low. Based on School Based
Curriculum or KTSP, students in junior high schools have to be able to not only
understand the nature of English but also produce certain various short
functional texts, monologues and essays in the form of procedure, descriptive,
recount, narrative and report. It becomes a challenge to the teacher to teach in
a writing class. Nevertheless, writing is needed to be taught as early as possible
so the students can achieve better understanding and practice on it.
Furthermore, the act of writing is an essential activity for them in their future
academic life.
However, not all students like the method which is used by their
teachers. In fact, learning English with the same teaching technique makes the
students bored. Especially in writing, sometimes students are lack of idea. That
is why teachers need various methods which can encourage students’ creativity
and sense of writing. The teacher should make use of available resources to
develop students’ creativity in learning English, especially in writing.
In the implementation of teaching and learning process of English, the
improvement of basic skills of language is still hard to achieve and one of them
is in writing skills. Writing is usually considered as the most frustrating skill to
writing is a skill that must be improved by the students. In the process of
teaching and learning writing, some teachers do not know how to teach writing
appropriately. They usually ask the students to write sentences as many as they
can but they do not know how to make their students do the instruction. This
fact motivated the research to focus on encouraging the students to write
recount or to tell stories of their past experience in the written form.
B. Identification of the Problem
Based on the background problem in the research study, there are many
factors affecting the writing ability of junior high school students. Nowadays,
writing activity is often assumed less important compared with other skills.
That is why many people do not know the benefits of writing in the students’
learning process. In this case, good environment should be created by the
teacher or instructor to facilitate students’ writing skill development as writers.
As a facilitator, the teacher has to facilitate the teaching and learning process
in the classroom so it can run well. Teacher has to give stimulus and choose
appropriate material and technique.
Another problem comes from the students themselves. Writing is
usually viewed as a so-much-formal activity. There are many rules in writing
that make students less motivated to write. It is another teacher’s responsibility
to correct this assumption by convincing the students that they can write with
freedom, without considering the rules too much. In writing, the students are
besides they receive the materials given by the teacher, they have to learn and
develop their ability by themselves. Their desire to write by themselves has to
be increased through writing activities in the classroom because they rarely
practice writing outside the school. They do not give themselves more exposure
of writing while the teacher does not have sufficient time to focus on their
writing.
Lastly, the activities done by the teacher are did not encourage the students
to learn and write more. The teacher usually just asks the students to write
based on the instruction, but it is very difficult for them to write directly in the
empty paper. Asking the students to rearrange words into sentences or
sentences into paragraphs cannot stimulate their willingness to write. The
English teacher in SMP N 2 Gamping usually asked the students to write
sentences based on pictures, but the students are still confused about how and
where they have to start writing. Considering this, it is the English educators’
or teachers’ responsibility to provide learning process that is able to support
the junior high school students’ writing ability. Moreover, it can also encourage
them to write more both inside and outside the classroom.
C. The Limitation of the Problem
Based on the observation and interview that had been done and had been
explained above, the students writing ability of grade VIII students at SMP N
2 Gamping was low. The low writing ability was affected by some factors and
That would spend much effort and time while the researcher had to do the study
in a limited time. Therefore, the researcher focused on the technique to improve
the students writing ability using story-mapping technique.
By using the story map, it was expected that the students had the prewriting
activities so they can write more easily because they could have imagination
on their writing. As a prewriting activity, students could sketch the beginning,
middle and concluding events as frameworks for their stories. The story map
also improved the students' ability to sequence story events. Students’ low
writing ability were improved by using story map because it overcame the
problems of writing related to the teacher (method and media), the student
(motivation, confidence, interest), and the process (classroom activities).
The researcher also expected that the story map encouraged the students
to like writing and write both inside and outside the classroom. It was also
hoped that they were able to develop their writing skills.
D. The Formulation of the Problem
Based on the identification of the problems and limitation of the problem
explained above, the researcher formulated the problem of the research in the
following question: “How the story-mapping technique could be implemented
E. The Objective of the Research
The objective of this research was to describe the use of the
story-mapping technique in improving the writing ability of the students grade VIII
at SMP N 2 Gamping.
F. The Significance of the Research
This research was conducted to describe how the story-mapping
technique was implemented to improve the students’ writing ability of grade
VIII students at SMP N 2 Gamping. It was hoped that the finding of this
research would give benefits and contribution to some parties theoretically and
practically and for the research and development program.
1. Theoretically
The researcher expected that the result of this study could be used
by English Education Department students of Yogyakarta State
University as a reference related to the topic of writing ability and the use
of the story-mapping technique. The findings would also enrich and
enlarge the knowledge of English teaching that hopefully could be a
beneficial reference for the future researchers who would do similar study.
2. Practically
For the English teachers, the findings would be useful information
about the use of the story-mapping technique which could improve
technique could be used as alternative technique to teach writing in their
teaching and learning process. For the students of grade VIII in SMP N
2 Gamping, hopefully their writing skill could be improved after the
implementation of this research. For the researcher himself, this study
was expected to improve his awareness of the importance of writing and
gave experience in doing the research and working with other people as
well.
3. Research and development program
For the material developers, the result of this study can be used as a
reference which gave information about the use of the story map in
writing task.
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This chapter is divided into two parts, which are literature review and
conceptual framework. Literature review discusses the theories and studies related
to the topic while conceptual framework discusses the relationship of the theories
with the study.
A. Literature Review
1. Theory of Writing
a. What is Writing
Oshima and Hogue (1997: 2) define writing as a progressive activity. This
means that when we first write something down, we have already been
thinking about what we are going to say and how we are going to say it.
Writing is actually one of language skills which is categorized as a productive
one. It is a continuing process of discovering the way to find the most
effective language for communicating someone’s feelings and thoughts.
Writing is also a form of communication to express the thinking or feeling
through writing after spoken.
Byrne (1984:1) states that writing is the act of forming. Writing is
Graphic symbols, that is letter or combination of letter in which relate, to the
sounds when the writers make in speaking in their sense, the symbols have to
be arranged according to certain contention to form word and words have to
While Bram (1995: 3) also defines that writing is producing or
reproducing written massage. It is an active process to organize and formulate
the ideas on the paper. Therefore, before we write, we need to determine what
the writer shall have something meaningful to convey.
Another definition of writing is proposed by Celce Murcia (2003). She
states that writing is the production of the written word that results in a text
in which must be read and comprehended in order for communication to take
place. Writing makes a product in the form of written texts which are used to
deliver the writer ideas and meanings to the reader.
In writing, the writer must always use graphic symbols namely letters or
combinations of letters that related to the sound made when speaking. Writing
is however not just production of graphic symbols. There is necessity that the
symbols (the letter) put together to form words, sentences, and paragraphs
under certain conventions. Writing is not just to write a single word, nor is it
to write just single sentence. In a sentence, the words must be related to each
other, and the paragraph, the sentences must be knitted together (Byrne 1988).
By writing activity, a person can find the solution of difficult problem,
master the fact even by writing, a person can also communicate through his
way that is impossible through other means. Writing involves large areas
including two main cases: linguistic and extra linguistic systems. The former
refers to thing or things to communicate. This means that writing is the act to
So, when writing, there are two problematic areas namely what to write
and how to write it, which become two competences for a writer, reference or
knowledge of language and knowledge of reference or language ad thought
(Brown, 1987:56 ) or linguistic competence and communicative competence
(Litlewood, 1981: 3). It is then understandable that linguistic skills are meant
as the ability to manipulate the rules of language usage conventionally, while
extra-linguistic system or knowledge of word refers to what the writer knows
about the subject to write.
Writing is complex. In addition to the knowledge of the vocabulary,
grammar and syntax, a writer must also have good knowledge of other writing
mechanics such as the use of punctuation such as, capitalization, question
mark, commas, and act. These mechanics are used to reveal syntactic
structure (Fromkin and Rondman, 1983: 154). Based on some definition
above the writer concludes that writing is a way to producing a message into
writing.
b. Micro Skills and Macro skills of Writing
Brown (2001) proposed twelve micro kills and macro skills of writing as
presented below:
Micro Skills:
1) Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.
3) Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order
patterns.
4) Use acceptable grammatical system (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization,
patterns, and rules).
5) Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.
6) Use cohesive devices in written discourse.
Macro skills:
7) Use rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse.
8) Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts
according to form and purpose.
9) Convey links and connections between events and communicative such
relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, generalization,
and exemplification.
10)Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing.
11)Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the
written text.
12)Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as accurately
assessing the audience’s interpretation, using prewriting devices, writing
soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising
and editing.
c. Writing Process
According to Flower and Hayes as quoted in Scott (1996), writing
processes may be viewed as the writer’s tool kit. In using the tools, the writer
is not constrained to use them in a fixed order or in stages, and using any tool
may create the need to use another. Generating ideas may require evaluation,
as writing sentences and evaluation may force the writer to think up new
ideas. This is the model of writing process adapted from Grave (1983):
1) Prewriting
In prewriting, the goal is to generate ideas. Listing, brainstorming,
clustering, outlining, free writing, silent thinking, conversation with a
neighbor, diagraming, storyboarding or mind mapping are all ways to
generate ideas. Teachers will provide a writing task and help them to
generate vocabulary and ideas without concern for correctness or
appropriateness in the first stage of writing.
The activities of prewriting is usually to begin with the writers’
awareness, what the writer try to communicate and why it is important to
communicate. Sometimes the writers use prewriting activities as a means
to find a good topic, narrow topics that are too broad, and look at purpose.
The first activity that can be done in prewriting stage can be in the
form of brainstorming. In brainstorming, the teacher introduces the topic
second activity is free writing. Free writing is a method in which the
writer writes out everything you know about the topic, even the things
that might seem unimportant. The key to free writing is to write without
stopping. This can help lead the writer to ideas he had forgotten, or help
him to see the relationships between ideas. The third technique is
clustering. Clustering can be defined as a prewriting technique that
enables the writer to choose an encircled nucleic topic around which
whatever may be found in relationship with will be chosen to be jotted
down in three-branch like relationship. The writer can select the ones that
can be found most crucial or potent enough to develop the topic he/she
aims at.
Once the students have interesting idea and know how to develop
them, they can write better. In prewriting stages in the classroom, the
teacher will create that kind of environment in which the students
functionally benefit from. That is why prewriting activity is very
important to get the ideas and develop them into a good writing.
2) Drafting
Drafting is a stage of the writing process during which a writer
organizes information and ideas into sentences and paragraphs. So, it is
the first production stage of getting ideas down using complete sentences
and reflecting the general conventions of writing. Drafting is used not
only in writing a paper or a novel story, but it is also necessary in simple
writing need to be drafted, the writer needs to write down ideas,
organizing them into a sequence, and providing the reader with a frame
for understanding these ideas. The writers can start drafting with write an
outline or just write down any idea they have. In this stage, they do not
have to focus on accuracy, however content and meaning are the things
that they have to focus on. A draft may contains grammatical and spelling
errors, and may lack details, so the writer needs to continue rephrasing
and expanding their ideas.
3) Revising
In revising, the students have to revise and reshape their writing
based on the feedback given by the teacher. Revising is where the student
given a chance to fix the mistakes such as the content is not dense enough,
the order is not clear, the grammar is wrong, the use of the words is
inappropriate and so on. They may revise their works by improving the
contents, editing the grammar, moving the sentences, using another
words, and so on.
4) Editing
Editing is the stage where grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors
are corrected. According to Grave, the editing stage cannot be included
in the stage 1, 2, and 3 because it can decrease the quality of the writing
product. If the students worried about their mistakes in the pre-writing,
drafting and revising stage, the precious brain space that is devoted to
writing mechanics. Many professional writers always edit their writing
in the end, so if the teacher wants the students to become authors and
composers of authentic writing, he has to teach them to approximate the
writing process used by real writers.
5) Publishing and sharing
This stage is where students’ writing is shared with an audience.
Publishing can involve putting together class books, collections of
writing, school or class newspapers, school or class magazines, or
displaying short samples of writing in the hall or out in the community.
Writing experiences become even more powerful by having students read
their work out loud in small groups, to another classmate, or in a large
group setting.
d. The characteristics of good writing
Experiences in school leave some people with impression that good
writing simply means writing that contains no bad mistakes. That is no errors
of grammar, punctuation, or spelling. In fact, good writing is much more than
just correct writing. It is writing that is responds to the interest and needs of
our readers. Here are the basic characteristics of good effective writing
according to Nordiques (1999):
1) good writing has a clearly defined purpose
2) It makes a clear point
4) The information is clearly connected and arranged.
5) The words are appropriate, and the sentences are clear, concise, emphatic
and correct.
e. The components of writing
Oshama and Houge (1997) define that there are five components of
writing.
1) Content
The content tends of relevance, clarity, originality, logic, and act. The
content itself must be clear for the readers so they can get information
from it. To have a good content in a piece of writing, the content should
be unity and complete. Unity in writing means that each students must
relate each other and support the main idea while complete means that
the main idea has been explained and developed fully by using particular
information.
2) Organization
Organization concern with the way of how the writer arranges and
organizes their idea and their message in writing form which consist of
the same partial order. In writing, the writer should know about what
kinds of paragraph that they want to writer and what topic that they want
to tell to the readers. It must be supported by cohesion. In addition,
Byrner (1988) state that writer should be take care of the organization in
3) Language Use
It deals with the rules of verbs, agreement, articles, and act. To have
good grammar in writing, the writer should pay attention to the use of
grammatical rules concerning tenses, preposition, conjunction, clause,
etc. The lack of grammar will create miss understanding between the
writer and the reader.
4) Vocabulary
A good writer should master vocabulary and idiom as the language
aspect dealing with the process of writing. The writer has to consider
about how to put the words into the sentences and the putting sentences
the paragraph until they can build a piece of writing. Most of the students
are lack of vocabulary, therefore they are failed to compose a good piece
of writing because they find it difficult to choose the words to write.
5) Mechanic
It deals with capitalization, punctuation, spelling, etc. It is very
important part in writing because it will lead the reader to recognize
immediately what writer means. The use of favorable mechanic in
writing will make the reader easy to group the conveying ideas and
massage towards the written text.
f. Short Story Writing
Murdoch (2002) in short story writing, stated that short stories can, if
greatly enhance EFL courses for learners at intermediate level of proficiency.
He added that based on short stories, instructors can create a variety of writing
activities to help students develop their writing skills. Besides, short story
writing forces students to discipline their writing, emphasize conciseness, and
sharpen grammar skills. It can also take a role in developing the students
Self-expression which is also an important ingredient in all good essays.
There are certain elements that should exist in the short story:
1) Setting: the time and place in which the story happens. Authors often use
descriptions of landscape, scenery, buildings, seasons or weather to
provide a strong sense of setting.
2) Characters: persons, or sometimes even animals, who take part in the
action of a short story or other literary work.
3) The Conflict (problem): the struggle between two people or things in a
short story. The main character is usually on one side of the central
conflict. The main character may struggle against another important
character, against the forces of nature, against society, or even against
something inside himself or herself (feelings, emotions, and illness).
4) The Plot (events): the systematic chain of events which make up the short
story. Each link in the chain helps to build suspense and to solve a
problem.
5) The Solution: the outcome of the attempts to resolve the problem or
6) The Theme: the theme is the controlling idea or belief of the story. It
gives a basic meaning to a literary work. Generally, a theme is inferred
from the other elements in the short story and often evolves through the
conflict experienced by the main character.
g. Teaching Writing
According to Brown (1994), teaching means showing or helping
someone to learn how to do something, giving instruction, guiding in the
study of something, providing with knowledge and causing to know or
understand. It can be inferred that teaching writing means showing and
helping the students to write, giving them instruction in order for them to
write, providing them the knowledge, making them understand the
knowledge of writing and know how to write so they will be able to write and
produce good written product. The skills need and required in writing are
highly complex. The foreign language learners have to pay attention to the
higher level skills such as planning and organizing and also to the lower level
skills such as spelling, punctuation, word choice, and so on.
Kimble and Garmezy in Brown (2000) state that learning is relatively
permanent change in behavioral tendency and learning is the result of
reinforced practice. So, in order to improve the students’ writing skill, the
students have to practice to write and get reinforcement from the teachers.
teaching writing should be done, that are reinforcement, language
development, learning style, and writing as a skill:
1) Reinforcement
Students may acquire language mainly from oral or aural way.
However, most of them learn greatly from language that is written down.
Learning through visual demonstration of language construction is not
enough. Students often find it useful to write sentences using new
language directly after they learned it.
2) Language development
It is believed that the actual process of writing helps students to learn
as they go along. The mental activity that they undergo in constructing
written text is part of the ongoing learning experience.
3) Learning style
There are some students who are able to learn language just by
looking and listening. However, there are also those who need longer
time. They need to think things and produce the language in slower way.
Writing is appropriate for those students.
4) Language as a skill
Of all, the most important reason of teaching writing is that it is a
basic language skill. It is as important as the other skills which are
listening, speaking, and reading. Students need to know how to write
letters, to know some of writing’s conventions (punctuation, paragraph
h. Teaching Writing in Junior High School
English in Indonesia becomes popular and important, so that the
government obligates the subject to be taught in all stages of education.
Teaching English in junior high school is very important since it is one of
compulsory subjects. Besides that, teaching English in Junior High School
is aimed to teach the students to achieve the functional stage, it means the
students have to be able to use English to overcome problem in daily life
communication both orally and written. Students of junior high school are
required to understand the nature of writing and produce various functional
text, monologues, and essays in the form of procedure, descriptive, recount,
narrative, and report. Regarding to the text types, students of grade VIII deal
with descriptive, narrative, and recount text.
Teaching writing in junior high school is based on the school based
curriculum (KTSP). The curriculum contains standard of competence and
basic competency that should be achieved in each semester. Standard of
competence and basic competency is developed based on the KTSP that is
based on standard of contents and standard of graduate competencies
(Depdiknas, 2006). Below is the table of standard of competence and basic
Table 1. The standard of competence and basic competency of writing in Junior High School in the first semester.
Standard of competence Basic Competence Main Material /Learning
6. To express the meaning of short simple functional writtent texts and essays in the form of descriptive and recount to interact with the
surrounding environment.
6.1.To express the meaning of short and simple
functional writtent texts by using written language accurately, properly and acceptable to interact with the surrounding environment
6.2.To express the meaning and steps of rhetoric in the short simple essay by using written language accurately, properly and acceptable to interact with the surrounding environment in the form of descriptive and recount
Short functional texts such as:
- Invitation
- Announcement
- Short message
Texts in the forms of:
- descriptive
- recount
[image:37.612.177.500.138.658.2]2. The Story-mapping Technique
a. Definition
Pre writing is a very important step in writing. In this step, the writer
has to gather ideas and decide the plot that he wants to apply in the story.
The writer has to make the outline first and arrange the outline based on the
plot that they want to develop. As Gerrold (2001) stated that all writing is
list-making, nothing more. The trick is knowing what to put next on the list.
It is can be implied that in developing the plot of the story was in some way
similar to the act of writing a list. A story map could be viewed as a visual
depiction of the settings or the sequence of major events and actions of story
characters with the aim of enabling students to relate story events and to
perceive structure in literary selections. The Story Map interactive includes
a set of graphic organizers designed to assist teachers and students in
prewriting and post reading activities. Li (2007) noted that a story map is a
graphic organizer used to identify the main elements of the story and
categorize the main events in sequential order. After completing individual
sections or the entire organizer, students have the ability to print out their
Figure 1: An example of a story map
b. Advantages of the story-mapping technique
The story-mapping technique can be used to improve the students’
writing ability by enabling them to visualize story characters, events, and
setting. It can be used with both fiction (i.e., defining characters; events) and
nonfiction (i.e., main ideas; details). Furthermore, the technique could be
used to increase students’ awareness that story characters and events are
interrelated. The story map question provided by the teacher also can
Story maps can be used with the entire class, small groups, or for
individual work. The use of story maps as a comprehension strategy can be
beneficial for all students, and are especially helpful for students needing
the additional support of a graphic organizer.
B. Relevant Studies
There are some relevant studies related to the use of the story-mapping
technique in improving students’ writing ability. The first is a study conducted
by Daqi Li. He studies the effect of story mapping and story map questions on
the story writing performance of students with learning disabilities. He conducts
the research to four 4th and/or 5th grade students with learning disabilities from
two elementary schools in Texas. The aims of this study is to know what is the
effect of the instructional strategy of using story maps and story map questions
on the fluency of story writing by students with learning disabilities. The finding
of the research shows that the strategy of story mapping and story map questions
was effective in increasing the story writing fluency of three of the four subjects
in the study. Following the intervention of the strategy, the three subjects were
able to produce longer stories than before.
The second is a study conducted by Salem Saleh Khalaf Ibnian on a
research entitled The Effect of Using the Story- Mapping Technique on
Developing Tenth Grade Students’ Short Story Writing Skills in EFL. His study
attempted to answer the following questions: What are the short story writing
skills needed for tenth grade students in EFL And what is the effect of the using
writing skills in EFL. This study is an experimental study conducted in Jordan
which use 84 tenth grade male students as sample classified into four classes,
two served as an experimental group and the other ones as control. The result
of this research proved that the story-mapping technique had a positive effect
on developing Jordanian tenth grade students' short story writing skills in terms
of content and organization, mechanics of writing, language use as well as in
skills emerged from creative abilities (fluency, flexibility, novelty and
elaboration).
From the study above, it can be concluded that the story-mapping
technique has an effect on improving the students’ writing ability, either on
normal students, or on the students with learning disabilities. So, I believe that
the story-mapping technique can be regarded as an effective way to improve
students’ writing ability.
C. Conceptual Framework
This study begins with the problem that occurs in English teaching and
writing process. The problem is the low writing ability of the students grade
VIII in SMP N 2 Gamping. Review of related theories has been presented
above as references for dealing with the problem. This section then will present
the conceptual framework of the research study.
The low writing ability of the students grade VIII in SMP N 2 Gamping
are many techniques that can be used to improve the writing ability of the
student, and one of them is using the story-mapping technique.
Story-mapping technique is an instructional strategies that may hold
promise for many students who are struggling with writing. Story mapping
provides students with a glance view of the basic story structure and the
relationship between story elements. This technique has been found to be
effective in helping students learn the structure of a story and develop their own
story. Story-mapping is easy to prepare and implement. English teachers can
easily adapt them and apply them to various writing activities.
A story map is used as a visual tool that shows the interrelation among
the important idea, notion and facts that take place in the story. It is based on a
logical organization of events and ideas of a story. The students do not have to
write the text directly but they can write the main point of the text first and then
28
methodology of this research consists of type of the research, setting of the research,
subjects of the research, sharpening the problem, research design, the research data
collection, validity and reliability of the data, and the research data analysis. Each
and all of them will be presented below.
A. The Type of Research
The type of this research was action research, which focused on the efforts
to improve the real condition of the English teaching and learning process.
According to Burns (2010), action research is a research in which in doing the
research the researcher involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic
approach to explore teaching context. In this research, the researcher looked
for the problems in the teaching and learning process to be solved or
weaknesses on the teaching and learning process that could be improved.
Therefore, in action research, the focus is on process not the product. Action
research is not only solving problem but also improving matters.
Kemmis and McTaggart (1992:22–5) state that one of the key principles of
action research is collaborative, it means action research involves those who
responsible for action in improving that action. In doing this research, the
researcher did not work alone; he collaborated with the English teacher to
improve the writing ability of the students grade eight in SMP N 2 Gamping
through the story-mapping technique.
B. Setting of the Research
This research study was conducted in SMP N 2 Gamping, Sleman,
Yogyakarta. There are forty eight teachers and thirteen laborers. It has 12
classrooms, 4 classrooms for each grade. There are a computer laboratory, a
language laboratory, a science laboratory, and a library to support the teaching
and learning process. There are three English teachers, all graduated from
English Education Department, in the school.
SMP N 2 Gamping was selected because based on the researcher
observation, the students have low writing ability. It is caused by the teaching
and learning process of writing in the classroom which is lack of variation, so
the students easily get bored. However, the students of this junior high school
can represent many other junior high school students in Yogyakarta, hopefully
this research can give contribution to the development of the students writing
ability on a broader scope.
The research was conducted in the first semester of the academic year
of 2013/ 2014. It was done in October to November including the observation,
planning, and the implementation of the use of the story-mapping technique to
improve the writing ability of the students grade VIII in SMP N 2 Gamping.
This was because based on the basic competence, recount is taught in the first
C. Subjects of the Research
The research involved one class of grade VIII in SMP N 2 Gamping. The
English ability of the students, especially in writing was still low, and they also
did not learn to write and produce text by themselves. Meanwhile, students of
junior high school grade VIII were supposed to be able to produce certain text
types. Because of their weakness in writing, the students in SMP N 2 Gamping
were suitable subjects to describe how the story-mapping technique can be used
to improve their writing ability.
The English teacher of grade VIII was involved in this research. She
participated in this research as a collaborator. The teacher observed the
research, gave information in the thematic reconnaissance step, and gave
opinions about the implementation of the story-mapping technique in the
teaching-learning process. This research also involved another collaborator,
which is a student from English Education Department to do observation and
to give opinions as the English teacher does. Collaborators are important
because they give the researcher great support and it increase his ability to
deepen his insights through dialogue with others.
D. Instruments of the Research
The instruments used in this research are presented below.
1. Interview Guideline
Interview guideline was used in the interviews to the English
in the reconnaissance and action steps. They were conducted to explore
the research focus area and allow the researcher to be engaged in an
in-depth discussion with the respondents, which could often lead to more
useful and richer information.
2. Observation sheet
The observation sheets were used by the collaborator to write field
notes. The observation was conducted during the teaching and learning
process. By having field notes, the researcher were able to record
everything happened in the class during the action. The collaborator
also noted the field situation that could not be seen by the researcher in
the teaching and learning process. From the field note, the researcher
and the collaborator could find the weaknesses and the obstacles in the
research.
3. Writing Tests
Students’ writing tests were used as media to get information about
the students’ ability after the story-mapping technique was applied. The
pre-test was given to measure students’ current ability, while the
post-test was given to measure development of the students’ witting ability.
By seeing the result of the test, it was seen whether there is an
improvement after implementing the story-mapping technique on
E. Procedure of the Research
The design of this research study was action research. According to
McNiff, et al (2003), action research is about individuals’ learning, in company
with other people, because people are always in relation with others in some
way. The personal aim of this research was the improvement of one’s learning,
while the social aim was an improvement of the situation. In conducting the
collaborative action research, the researcher invited English teacher and the
students to work collaboratively.
The team worked together in planning, implementing and reflecting the
action. Therefore, the model used in action research should be adaptable,
according to how teachers’ personal ideas and theories about what is happening
in their classroom are developing. The cycles in action research also should be
successive and open, and allow for as much as feedback and interaction
between the cycles as possible. The action research was conducted in two
cycles, depend on the aim of the research study. The processes of the phases
Figure 2 : Simple Action Research Cycle Model by Kemmis and McTaggart
Kemmis and McTaggart (1998) in Burns (2010: 07) have developed a simple
model of the cyclical nature of the typical action research process (Figure 2).
Each cycle has four steps: plan, act, observe, and reflect. There are four phases
that are used to conduct the action research:
a. Planning
In this step, the researcher and the team analyzed and interpreted the
themes of the research or study. The researcher identified and analyzed the
problem by doing observation in the class. He also conducted depth
interview with the students and the English teacher to get further
b. Acting
After planning the actions, the researcher and the collaborator
implemented the actions in the teaching and learning process. In this step,
the researcher began to face with the subject of study. The purpose of this
step was to solve the problem, which was the students' low writing skill.
c. Observing
After acting, the researcher elaborated the type of data, the data
collecting procedure, and the instruments that used to collect the data. It
was done to know the impact of the technique that had been used and to
find out the problem that occurred during the implementation of the
technique.
d. Reflecting
By doing reflecting, the researcher evaluated the process during the
research process. The researcher observed whether the action had negative
or positive effect to the teaching-learning process. The items that evaluated
include change of the students, class, and also teacher.
F. Data and Technique of Collecting Data
The data collected on this research were in the form of qualitative and
quantitative data. They were obtained by testing and interviewing the students
of grade VIII, by doing observation on the English teaching learning process,
and by holding discussion with the observer and the English teacher. The
and interviews transcripts. On the other hand, the quantitative data were taken
from the result of the students’ writing tests.
In the first step, during the reconnaissance step, the researcher did a class
observation together with the collaborator in order to get information related to
the English teaching-learning process. The information collected is about how
the teacher taught, how the students participated in teaching-learning process,
about what problems occurred and so on. Interviews with the English teacher
and the students were also held to know more about the difficulties that
happened in the teaching and learning process.
The second step was planning step. After the researcher found problems or
weaknesses after doing the reconnaissance step, the researcher conducted a
discussion with the English teacher to decide what kind of activity to be applied
in order to solve problems, that is the writing ability of the students grade VIII.
Not only the English teacher, the researcher also asked for the collaborator’s
opinion and suggestion.
In the next step, that was action and observation, the researcher, the English
teacher, and the collaborator worked together. The collaborator did observation.
Interviews were done after the implementation of the technique. The researcher
interviewed the collaborator, the English teacher, and the students about the
implementation of the story-mapping technique to improve the students’
writing ability.
After action step was done, the researcher reflected on the result of the
written text were evaluated. Then, the researcher and the collaborator
determined the solution of the problems to make the teaching and learning
process better in the next cycle.
G. The Research Data Analysis
Some action plans were implemented in the classroom in some cycles,
depending on the research study itself. Besides implementing the action plans,
the researcher and the collaborator also observed and recorded the teaching and
learning process, and did the interviews with some students of grade VIII after
the action had been done. All the members were involved in the research
discussion based on the actions analysis. The result of the discussion would be
important to serve as an evaluation for the implementation of the action plans
to improve the next actions.
In analyzing the data of this research, the researcher used some steps
proposed by Burns (1999, 2010).
1. Assembling the data
In this step, the researcher collected the data from the observation
and interviews. They were in the forms of field notes, and interview
transcripts. The researcher reviewed and or revised questions and look for
broad patterns, ideas or trends that seemed to answer the questions from
2. Coding the data
In the second step, the researcher reduced the large amount of data
to be more manageable categories of concept. It was done to identify which
of the data that can be coded qualitatively and which of the data can be
coded quantitatively.
3. Comparing the data
After the researcher finished coding the data, the categories or
patterns were compared across different sets of data, for example
interviews compared with field notes, to see whether they showed the same
thing or whether there were contradictions.
4. Building meanings and interpretations
In building meaning and interpretation, the researcher think deeper
about what can be seen from the data by reflecting beyond the immediate
surface details. To make sense of the data, the researcher analyzed the data
several times to pose questions, rethink the connections, and develop
explanation of the situation.
5. Reporting the outcomes
The last step is reporting the outcomes. Here, the researcher was
describing the context of the research, about the way he could present the
of the research from the beginning to the end not just the analysis and the
findings.
Meanwhile, the quantitative data of this research were obtained from the
tests conducted. It was analyzed using descriptive statistics in the form of mean.
By comparing the means of the writing tests result given to the students, the
researcher was able to see the improvement on the students’ writing ability.
H. Validity and Reliability of the Data
To assess the validity of the data, then the researcher used five criteria
proposed by Anderson et al. in Burns (1999:161) namely democratic validity,
outcome validity, process validity, catalytic validity and dialogic validity. The
ways to fulfill those validities will be explained as follows:
1. Democratic validity
Democratic validity relates to stakeholders’ chance to give their
personal opinions, ideas, and comments about the implication of the action
research. In this research, the democratic validity fulfilled by having
discussion with the members of the research, that is the students, the English
teachers, and the collaborator. They were given an opportunity to give their
ideas, comments, and suggestions toward the research. The discussion result
2. Outcome validity
Outcome validity of action research leads to outcomes achieved
within the research context. Outcome validity also depends on the process
of conducting the research. To get this validity, the researcher not only
solved the problem, but also formulated new questions related to the
research.
3. Process validity
Process validity relates to the criterion to make the actions done in
action research valid. Process validity is closely related to the reliability and
competency of the researcher himself. The researcher observed the teaching
and learning process by using field notes, interviewed the students, and had
discussions with the English teacher, and the collaborator.
4. Catalytic validity
Catalytic validity refers to how stakeholders respond to their own
internal changes. To establish this validity, the results of each cycle
presented to the member and asked their comments or responses. Later on,
the responses considered to modify the process.
5. Dialogic validity
Dialogic validity means that each stakeholder can participate in the
process of the research. This validity was fulfilled by discussing the research
findings with the English teacher, the collaborator, and some students of
English Education Department of UNY. The members of discussion were
The reliability of the research was obtained by giving genuine data
such as the field notes, interview transcript and other records. According to
Burns (1999), there are four triangulation techniques to get trustworthiness.
The researcher will use three of those triangulation techniques which are time
triangulation, investigator triangulation, and theoretical triangulation. Each of
them is explained below.
a. Time Triangulation
The data of the research were collected at one point of time or over
a period of time to get a sense of what are involved in the process of the
changes. In this research, the researcher conducted the actions from
October 19th 2013 until November 9th 2013.
b. Investigator Triangulation
Two or more investigators are involved in the same research setting.
According to Burns and Grove (2001), the use of investigator triangulation
removes the potential for bias that may occur in a study conducted by a
single investigator. To fulfil the investigator triangulation, the researcher
invited the English teacher and the collaborator to the class.
c. Theoretical Triangulation
Theoretical triangulation means that the data are analyzed form more
than one perspective. In this research, the researcher reviewed theories
41
The research was aimed to describe the use of the story-mapping technique
in improving the writing ability of grade VIII students at SMP N 2 Gamping. This
chapter discusses the process of the research including the reconnaissance step,
planning, action and observation, and reflection. The research was conducted in two
cycles. The first cycle was conducted in three meetings and the second was in two
meetings. This chapter also presents the results of the research in the form of
qualitative and quantitative data. The details are presented below.
A. Reconnaissance
Before conducting the research, the researcher identified the problems
that occurred in the teaching and learning process, especially in teaching writing.
The researcher began to observe the teaching and learning process in the
classroom to know the students’ problems in writing. To strengthen the findings,
he held interviews both to the students and to the English teacher. After that, the
problems were selected and some problems were chosen to be overcome. Finally,
actions were determined to overcome the problems. Each step in the
reconnaissance stage is explained below.
1. Identification of the problems
This research was initiated by gathering information dealing with
the teaching and learning process of grade VIII in SMPN 2 Gamping. To
process. He also interviewed the English teacher and the students, and
conducted a pre-test.
The following is the transcript of the interview with the English
teacher, which indicates some of the problems.
R : Kalau untuk kemampuan writing siswanya sendiri, terutama yang
kelas dua ini gimana bu? (How is the writing ability of the second grade students?)
T : Ya kalau disuruh menulis gitu kadang – kadang mereka masih bingung,
yaa sebagian ada yang tulisannya sudah bisa dibaca dan ada yang nggak ngerti juga gitu. (Most of them get difficulty in writing. Some of them can write well, while others cannot.)
R : Jadi kalau disuruh nulis di kelas itu siswa biasanya semangat atau tidak bu? (Do they seem encouraged when they are asked to write?) T : semangat sih sebenarnya, mereka senang menceritakan gitu. Tetatpi
ya ada beberapa yang nggak langsung ngerjain, harus di suruh – suruh dulu. (Some of them are encouraged to write, while the others need to be asked frequently)
R : Kalau kesulitannya dalam aktivitas writing di kelas itu biasanya apa
bu? (Is there any difficulty in the writing activities in the classroom?)
T : Kesulitan dalam aktivitas writing itu sebetulnya mereka jarang bilang ada kesulitan, kan biasanya mereka sudah bawa kamus jadi kalau ada kesulitan tinggal buka kamus. Tapi kalau untuk hasilnya ya barangkali saya tahu maknanya lah mas ya, untuk grammarnya ya masih agak kurang dan banyak yang salah. (Most of the students do not consider any problems in writing since they consult to the dictionaries whenever
they find difficult words. However, there is still a problem dealing
with the meaningfulness of their writings.)
Based on the transcript above, it can be seen that the writing ability
of the students was low. The teacher also stated that the writing interest of
writing. Therefore, they were usually confused and did not directly write the
text.
From the students’ interview, it also revealed that the teacher rarely
asked them to write a text during the eight-grade period. The teacher only
asked them to make a sentence or translate sentences from English to Bahasa
Indonesia.
R : Oke, dim, kalau nulis di kelas tu bu guru biasanya ngasih kegiatan
apa aja? (What activities do you usually do in the writing class?)
S2 : Kegiatan, mendikte, sama menulis kata – kata itu mas. (The teacher
gives us some activities to do, dictates particular materials, and
writes a list of vocabulary).
R : Cuma itu? (Is it only that?)
S2 : Ya (Yes, it is.)
R : Kalau disuruh menulis teks itu gimana? (What does the teacher do
when she asks the students to write a text?)
S2 : Ya, ditulis mas, ditulis di papan tulis itu mas, nanti suruh
diterjemahkan kadang – kadang cuma ditulis trus dibaca aja. (First,
the teacher writes the text in the whiteboard. Then, we are asked to translate or just read the text)
R : Hmm, jadi kalau gitu pembelajaran di kelas tu nyenengin, atau biasa
aja atau malah bosen gitu? (So, how do you feel in the writing class? Do you feel happy? Do you get bored?)
S1 : Kadang – kadang bikin boring, kadang – kadang biasa aja, haha.
(Sometimes we feel that the class is OK, but sometimes it is boring.)
R : Oh gitu, kamu sendiri kalau nulis seneng nggak? Seneng nu
